The new Chevy Volt has an estimated price somewhere above $40K which puts it out of the reach of most Americans. Personally I would have much more attractive choices in that price range(BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Infiniti).

mad scientist on July 13, 2009 at 1:20 PM

Chryslers answer is much better,they’re using the body dies from a ‘72 Gremlin, (they bought AMC), and a 5hp Briggs & Stratton

The only graph one needs to see to understand the last 65m years of climate change…

65m years of climate change

Wolftech on July 13, 2009 at 5:12 PM

65 millions years…ROFL…and these idiots are trying to sell us climate change.

65m years of climate change

MarkTheGreat on July 12, 2009 at 2:21 PM

It has already been said that batteries are terribly efficient; a big part of the weight loading for an electric vehicle is hauling around it’s own batteries. Keeping the weight of the vehicle as low as possible makes sense in terms of not exposing how horribly inefficient the vehicle really is (we won’t be seeing any electric 18-wheelers). In all fairness, the new LiIon batteries are lighter in weight than either NiCad or the lead-acid batteries that are still used in golf carts.

ADVANTAGE: Every town could be like San Francisco.

DISADVANTAGE: Every town could be like San Francisco.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c-EovCrjBo

The only problem with flywheels, is that when they fail, they will vaporize everyone in the car and quite probably anyone within 20 feet.

MarkTheGreat on July 12, 2009 at 2:26 PM

Apparently you haven’t read anything about composite flywheels. They’re made up of wound polymer filament and have done high rpm tests where failure usually means that the composite flywheel fail (e.g. exposed to air in a vacuum chamber) turns into fluff like cotton candy with small shrapnels that “explode” within a harden container .

http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/MoreCategories/Batteries/

As such, I didn’t read all 5 pages of posts. However:

>>onlineanalyst on July 9, 2009 at 9:37 PM
>The production of batteries for many of these vehicle solutions is dirty and environmentally destructive. The >drain/demands on electricity to charge them will be ineffecient and bankrupt the owners in utility coast.

This story brought the same thing to my mind. The nickel used in nickel-metal hydride batteries for Hybrid cars. If you’ve got Google-Earth, take a look at Sudbury, Ontario the site of the most productive nickel mine on the planet. It used to be worse. You could see the REAL environmental devastation (as opposed to the kind “environmentalists” typically concern themselves with) from space.

>>TBinSTL on July 9, 2009 at 10:31 PM
>The same applies to hydrogen. Since there is no free hydrogen on earth, to speak of, all will have to be >separated(most likely from Oxygen in water) and that takes energy. Hydrogen is just a storage medium and the >energy to generate the usable hydrogen will have to come from mundane sources just like the electricity to charge >electric vehicles.

Actually, it’s worse than that. You can’t get hydrogen for fuel cells from electrolysis of water. Well, o.k., you can — IF you’re interested in using more energy (in the form of electricity from, you guessed it, coal-fired power plants) to separate the hydrogen than you get from recombining the hydrogen in a fuel cell. In other words, it’s a net LOSS of energy. Electric cars would be far more efficient by comparison. No, the only real source of H for fuel cells is to be found in natural gas. Unfortunately, the byproduct left over when you remove the H from the CH4 (using current methods) is carbon monoxide. If you think the watermelons have a problem with CO2, imagine the outrage over CO, which, aside from being poisonous, has a GWP 3 times that of CO2. And CO from a fossil fuel to boot. Fuel Cells are even more dead in the water than electric cars.

And, though it may not solve any environmental or energy problems, the best idea I’ve heard in years comes from BobMbx on July 10, 2009 at 4:15 PM.

>Ever hear of bumper cars?

I want one. This whole discussion has been beside the point. What we should be discussing is how we can make this happen. A bumper car in every garage.

A potentially simple answer. Instead of a lithium battery replace it with a composite flywheel battery instead.

Kokonut on July 11, 2009 at 4:54 AM

The only problem with flywheels, is that when they fail, they will vaporize everyone in the car and quite probably anyone within 20 feet.

If all that is true, then why do railroads use, almost exclusively, hybrid electric diesels for their locomotives?

silverfox on July 10, 2009 at 9:43 PM

Because they don’t need transmissions.
Period.

…and it has a battery that can capture both regenerative braking energy and off peak night time electricity. It’s an

silverfox on July 11, 2009 at 1:07 PM

Still don’t get it, do you Foxy? Even if the battery could efficiently store power, all it does “for the planet” is to move the CO2 generation from the car to the power plant. And because the power plant has to generate MORE power than any on-board engine (because of substantial transmission and conversion losses), the net result for the planet is A LOT MORE CO2!!!!

And batteries are HORRIBLY INEFFICIENT at energy storage compared to chemical fuel, pressure, and phase change energy storage schemes. For energy transmission: electricity good! For energy storage: electricity bad!!

Electric cars (that is, those which attempt to operate from stored electricity) are a complete waste of time, energy, and natural resources. They are extremely costly, dangerous to humans, and are terrible polluters because of their short and inefficient life. They are a technological dead end, and need to be pushed aside in favor of one of the alternatives which can actually improve our lives. Ultimately they will be pushed aside by the marketplace.

Didn’t GM have a hydrogen emphasis? Or is that what you are talking about? I doubt it since a GM show I watched intimated that it needed nuclear power to produce the abundant electricity it needed. They did a tour with various SUVs on the east coast and had a refill station in Georgetown (here in Washington, DC). The film featured a Cadillac like mine that they claimed had identical perofrmance in all areas. WOW.

The whole program seemed to have died when The One got the votes for Pennsylvania Avenue. I don’t know.

BTW I own 3 GM cars. I do not hate them. I just have a theory about their limits. And wait till the feds and union start rolling. This ain’t Europe or Japan where it seems to work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMc2RdFuOxI&feature=fvw

Democrats and liberals should be required by law to drive clown cars. The rest of us should be allowed to shoot at these cars on sight.

BottomLine5 on July 10, 2009 at 10:24 PM

Love it!!!

Setting political ideology aside, anyone that ignores the importance of nuclear energy in the clean energy debate is ignorant.